Tottenham have their Europa League destiny in their own hands thanks to last week's 3-2 win at Hoffenheim. Ange Postecoglou's side, who sit sixth in the 36-team league table heading into their final league phase game, go into Thursday's home encounter against Elfsborg knowing that three points will secure a top-eight berth and see them avoid a two-legged knockout phase play-off tie in the process.

A point could even be enough for Tottenham to progress providing that other results go their way. If they finish outside the top eight, however, the north London club will face play-off fixtures on Thursday, February 13 and Thursday, February 20 with a spot in the round of 16 at stake.

The path Tottenham take will all become clear come 10pm on Thursday evening. Postecoglou's men are odds-on to defeat their Swedish opponents but the last couple of months has proved that anything is far from straightforward in N17.

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Regardless of whether Tottenham advance to the round of 16 or have to play a play-off tie, they will certainly be keeping tabs on Friday's Europa League draw. Once the group phase has come to a conclusion, the play-off draw takes place at midday on Friday at the House of European Football in Nyon, Switzerland.

The draw will be slightly different to previous years as the competition will operate via a bracket system like in major international tournaments. This means every teams' route to the final in Bilbao later this year will be mapped out from the round of 16 draw, which takes place on Friday, February 21.

In terms of the play-off draw, the teams finishing in ninth to 24th place in the league table will battle it out for a place in the knockout stage. The teams that finish between ninth and 16th will be seeded for the play-offs, with those coming between 17th and 24th unseeded.

Clubs will then be paired based on their league rankings. So ninth and 10th will be paired together 11th and 12th will and so on until the final pair of 23rd and 24th.

As the Europa League will be operating with a bracket system, potential opponents are also pre-defined by pairing of teams' final league positions. For example, teams finishing ninth and 10th will face the sides that came 23rd or 24th, with those in 11th and 12th coming up against the teams that placed 21st and 22nd in the league standings.

The draw starts with the unseeded teams, starting with those who ranked 23rd and 24th and ended with those in 17th and 18th. The first team of the pair will take their reserved spot on the silver side of the bracket, with the other unseeded team of the pairing then allocated to their reserved spot on the orange side of the bracket.

Once the procedure is carried out for all the remaining unseeded teams, it is repeated for the seeded teams, starting with the pairing ranked 15th and 16th. The play-off draw will come to a conclusion once the teams ranked ninth and tenth have been drawn. In principle, the seeded clubs play the return leg at home.

As the bracket system is mapped out for the rest of the tournament, Tottenham, providing they finish in the top eight, will not know their exact round of 16 opponents until the draw in February but they will know that it will be one of four teams. As is the case with the play-off draw, the round of 16 draw will see the teams finishing in the top eight of the Europa League table paired together.

The team that finishes first will be paired with the team who finishes second, third will be paired with four, and so on. The first team drawn from the four pairings will take their place in the silver side of the bracket and the second team drawn will be in the orange side.

The teams ranked first and second in the league phase will be drawn against the winners of the knockout play-off ties between the sides which finished in 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th. Those who came third and fourth will be drawn against the winners of the play-off ties between the sides in 13th, 14th, 19th and 20th.

Teams ranked fifth and sixth will be drawn against the winners of the play-off ties between the sides in 11th, 12th, 21st and 22nd. Finally, those who came seventh and eighth in the league phase will be drawn against the winners of the play-off ties between the sides in 9th, 10th, 23rd and 24th.

If Tottenham progress straight through to the round of 16, they will return to European action on Thursday, March 6. The second leg of the round of 16 takes place the following week.

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